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the affection between them had run down until there was barely a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, a stroke of her hair, a quick embrace at the door. The flow of her love life, whatever there had been of one, was down to a drip . . .
    drip . . . drip.
    Philip Slater, however, was not the sort of man who admitted to mistakes, whether they occurred in business or with people, especially with people. He prided himself on his perception when it came to people. He loved to play the development game, as he called it. When he was in an amusing mood in the evening, he would sit by this window, too, and look out at the streets of Emerald Lakes. Then he would begin. He would go through each and every man and woman residing here, detailing their personality, what they
    would do and not do. Sometimes to amuse himself, or maybe because he thought it might amuse her, he would imagine different wives with different husbands, predicting what the relationship would be, who would dominate, how they would speak to each other, even how they would make love.
    “Now you take Nikki Stanley,” he would say. “She would most assuredly always assume the top position if she were married to Vincent McShane. Don’t you think?”
    She would say nothing, but that didn’t matter to Philip. He heard what he expected, what he wanted to hear, and just continued as if she had spoken.
    At times she wondered if she were really here. Maybe she was a ghost. Maybe she had died with Bradley. Philip often looked at her as if he were looking through her, thinking about something else, and if she did tell him something new, he would either have
    already learned about it or act as if he hadn’t heard her speak. Unless it was something about his precious Emerald Lakes, of course. That would perk him up and get her his strict attention.
    Emerald Lakes had become his life. It was his church, his school, his world. He lost his only child so he made everyone here his children, even if he or she were older than he was. Philip had to have someone to look after and she wasn’t enough for him. She was too easy.
    Maybe I am dead, she thought. Maybe this is hell. She gulped her drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand roughly. Philip would have a hemorrhage if he saw her do anything that wasn’t dainty or ladylike. But seriously, she wondered—how do you
    really know if you’re alive? How do you really know where you are?
    She thought for a moment as she gazed at the Feinberg house. Marilyn had watched that new family and she had seen their excitement. Her attention was focused on the little girl.
    Bradley was about that age when he died. Or was he younger? What was happening to
    her mind? How could she forget even the slightest detail about her own child, much less his age? She had trouble remembering his face now. What mother had trouble
    remembering her child’s face?
    She rose slowly and put the glass down on the coaster on the marble table. Then she went to the basement door, opened it and flicked on the light before descending the wooden steps.
    The basement was finished in a light pine. They had a pool table and a beautiful white marble bar, but it was never used. Philip and she didn’t entertain, and especially never invited any of the residents of Emerald Lakes to a social occasion. It was as if Philip saw them and his life here as all business and he didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.
    At the back of the basement was a storage room with everything in it organized neatly on shelves and in boxes. It, too, had a tightly woven grayish white Berber rug. She flicked on the storage-room light and squatted beside a carton at the rear of the room, just under the bottom shelf and began to dig through the carton until she found an album buried under a pile of Philip’s old work shirts. Sitting back on her haunches, she opened the album and began to look at the photographs that had captured the stages of development of their little boy.
    He had such a